


a soldier without a mission is a dead soldier

by Aspenaire



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: AU, Angst, Gen, M/M, across America, brad's motorbike, post-GK, roadtrip, why I shouldn't write this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-31
Updated: 2012-05-31
Packaged: 2017-11-06 11:00:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/418129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aspenaire/pseuds/Aspenaire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nate knows that one day, this will eventually come to an end. In an empty motel room, with an empty bar, in white, tangled sheets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a soldier without a mission is a dead soldier

**Author's Note:**

> So, hereby I present my very very old fic to GK. Contains too much angst, too much sadness, so much love for the show. I borrowed the last scene from The Hurt Locker. (don't judge me, I just had to).  
> All the characters belong to the HBO (though I wish they didn't)

They've been travelling like this for months, without purpose or logic. Brad’s driving, Nate just holds on to him. Riding a motorbike is nothing like being in a humvee – all they hear is the wind, and the America, long forgotten by God, is theirs. Each mile is a mystery, just like back then, so many lives and miles ago, with desert, terrorist and Bravo Company behind their back.

 

Nate knows that one day, this will eventually come to an end. In an empty motel room, with an empty bar, in white, tangled sheets. That's why it's so strange: the longer they’re on the road, the better he feels. It’s only when they stop in a motel in Iowa for longer that two days that it suddenly strikes him – everything’s just wrong. Brad, who seems to instinctively guess what Nate's thinking of, says nothing. Instead, he takes off his clothes, switches off the light and ducks under the sheets. But he can't fool Nate and they both know it.

 

Because one day, sooner or later, Brad will abandon this life in pieces, the life they pretend to be living. He’ll leave this all behind on some highway, and Nate along with it. 

 

That’s why Nate hesitates – he can’t decide: for him, it’s to come back with Brad or to stay. He's so bloody scared by this thought that he really could hold onto Brad and his bike like he does now and never make this choice. But then they are on a gas station and Brad looks that guy in the eye, like he’s saying: 'it's not our life, and you, Nate, will be alone in the end'. And that's all.

 

Oh, Nate knows, he's just like Brad: a soldier without a mission is a dead soldier. They’re all the same. War too, but there's one difference: it's somewhere else. And that's where he should be right now: serving America and slowly dying in the dust of the desert, instead of dying here, drinking more and more and paying with stained dollars for gas.

 

The war’s still there. If not here, then at least between them, in a supermarket. A huge space shaped from metal, millions of shelves stocked with every product everyone on this planet could think of. When Nate sees this for the first time since his return, he's just staring. He stands like that for almost an hour near the liquors, trying to make up his mind - which vodka will it be. He still sees it all: the desert, the sand, junk food, and war somewhere between one hour of sleep and fear for his own ass. And Nate eventually takes the first vodka within his reach. When he pays for it, neither he nor Brad smile - they carry on driving. Brad makes it faster and faster and doesn't look back.

 

Nate doesn't look back either.


End file.
